Acer 6292

We have here one of the first Santa Rosa-based laptops to reach Indian shores, the Acer 6292, a 12.1 inch ultra-portable laptop. For those who are clueless, Santa Rosa is the code-name for Intel’s latest platform for laptops that was launched among much fanfare in Delhi on the 9th of May 2007. What is a platform you ask? Well, towards the end of the year 2003, Intel launched its highly successful platform Centrino. To get the Centrino certification and the logo (the one you see towards the right hand corner of the keyboard on the laptop), the manufacturer of the laptop had to include a Pentium M processor, an Intel motherboard and an Intel Wi-Fi card in the machine.

Last year, the Centrino platform took a huge stride forward with the introduction of the dual core processors code-named Yonah. The processors under Yonah are the Core Duo and not the Core 2 Duo (notice the 2 in between) processors that you see in the entry level laptops now a days. Core 2 Duo, launched later in the year, brought in a slight improvement in performance using the same amount of power and 64-bit support i.e. the ability to run a 64-bit OS like Vista (Vista comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions) and 64bit applications.

Now with Santa Rosa, there is a slight variation and for the first time there are two variants. This is how Intel terms it — Intel Centrino Pro processor technology and Intel Centrino Duo technology. Simply put, just two different variants based on the same platform. The Centrino Duo is consumer oriented and Pro is aimed at businesses with hardware-based security and wireless manageability of laptops.

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With Santa Rosa you have a bag full of changes. The processor FSB that used to cap at 667 MHz with the Core 2 Duo Merom processors is now increased to 800 MHz. Then there are quite a few battery savings tricks. And finally among the most important introductions are Intel’s latest Mobile 965 chipset along with their new onboard graphic accelerator, GMA X3100, their latest Wi-Fi N module that caps at a theoretical 300 Mbps as compared to 54Mbps for it’s previous generation variant and finally Turbo Memory, a non volatile extended memory that accelerates boot and application load time’s and supports Windows ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive functions.

Let’s leave the history session behind and get back to the review. As mentioned earlier Acer’s 6292 is based on Intel’s Santa Rosa platform and is based on the Centrino Duo processor technology but misses Intel’s latest Wi-Fi N module, the 4965AGN and instead uses their older GM3945ABG module that adheres to the a, b and g standards and caps out at 54 Mbps. Also missing is the Intel’s Turbo Cache Memory. Anyway, both the parts are optional and don’t disqualify the laptop from using the Centrino Duo sticker. We will speculate the reason for not including them later in the review. Let’s make our heads lighter and look at some eye candy, yea! The 6292 is neat and chic.
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Design, Usability and Features

Most of Acer’s laptops sold in India belonged to the entry level and hence whenever you think of Acer, the pale mint green lid comes to your mind. With the 6292, you get a sparkling carbon colored chassis that is based on Acer’s latest ProFile design and is made from a magnesium alloy that facilitates light weight and increased sturdiness. The keys are oriented in the standard format and are normal sized except for the function keys that are a little smaller. The keyboard keys are tactile and easy to work. On the top of the keyboard are two buttons — Power and ‘e’. ‘e’ is Acer’s Empowering technology button that launches an application skinned in the form of a gadget, that integrates seven frequently used applications.

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The power and ‘e’ button have a thin metallic strip running through them, further accentuating the looks. Even the touch-pad follows the black-silver-carbon theme and smoothly blends into the background.

On the left hand side are five on-touch buttons — Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Internet, Mail and the last one is programmable. In fact all four including ‘e’ and excluding Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are programmable to launch an application or a particular webpage.

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This is one of the best laptops I have come across in terms of port positioning. There are two USB ports on the right side and one of the left. The audio ports, infra-red and fire-wire ports are all in the front. The charging port and VGA-out are at the back.

Front

Left

Back

Right

The 6292 comes with a whopping 160 GB, 5400 rpm SATA II Hard Drive and a DVD Multi-Writer Drive. Other features include a 1.3 MP Webcam, a bio-metric scanner i.e. a fingerprint reader for enhanced security and a card reader. The 6292 comes bundled with Windows Vista Business.
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Performance
Battery Life
The Acer 6292 comes with a 4200 mAH six cell battery. Our battery test was conducted under the moderate performance setting which was applied through the ‘e’ management console. The battery lasted for 2 hours and 13 minutes. Under the low performance setting, the battery lasted for 2 hours and 49 minutes. Battery life in general terms is above average but since it’s the first laptop based on the new platform, conclusions can only be made once we test laptops from other manufacturers based on the same form factor and using the Santa Rosa platform.

Weight
The 6292 weights 1.99 Kgs. Not as light as the Ultra-portable VAIO’s from Sony but still very portable.

Screen
The 12.1-inch wide-screen laptop has a native resolution of 1280x800 and comes with gloss screen which Acer refers to as CrystalBrite Technology. It’s basically a coating on the screen but makes the colors more vivid and the images sharper. All manufacturers offer this option and have their own proprietary name given to it. Overall we really liked the screen. It gets sufficiently bright and color reproduction is very good with very smooth gradients.

Speakers
The quality of onboard speakers is above average, though the Altec Lansing in-built speakers found on HP and Compaq laptops are better.

Graphics
The Acer 6292 comes with Intel’s latest integrated graphics accelerator, the GMA X3100. It being an onboard option one shouldn’t expect it to keep pace with the latest games. A paltry score of 520 in 3DMark 06 confirms that. Though looking at the brighter side, this chip is well equipped to smoothly run high-definition content and is an able companion to Vista’s Graphic Aero interface.

Overall Performance
PCMark 2005 yielded a good score of 3840 points. Laptops equipped with a similarly clocked processor, similar memory and the previous generation chipsets (Intel 945 and Intel GMA 950) give a score of around 3000-3100 points. This confirms that the combination of an increased FSB and better on-board graphics does further the performance by a good margin.
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Conclusion
Acer has the perfect blend of good looks, intelligent design, power, a good operating system (Vista Business) and a very competitive price. The 6292 costs Rs. 69,990 not inclusive of taxes and not inclusive of the carry case that costs around Rs. 2,500. Most people’s observation will lead them to think as to why Acer hasn’t used the latest Wi-Fi N module and Intel’s Turbo memory. First of all let me remind you that even though this is an ultra-portable laptop, Acer has chosen to feature Centrino Duo processor technology and not the Centrino Pro. So ideally it’s aimed more towards the consumer side and I strongly feel that corporates should go for the Centrino Pro-based laptops. Most of the Wi-Fi access points and routers used at homes and colleges and in fact even most offices are only equipped to serve a, b and g standards, besides, the Wi-Fi N based products are still very expensive.

It will take more than a year for the Wi-Fi N based products to gather momentum in terms of sales and come to an affordable price point. So in that respect Acer has made an intelligent decision to still use the existing a/b/g Wi-Fi module and save costs. As regards to Turbo Memory, users who will benefit most from it are designers and 3-D content developers and they of course need large screens, at least not a 12.1-inch one. So saving costs there, is another smart decision. But there is no review complete without a comparison and the closest competitor to the Acer is definitely the XPS 1210 from Dell, though it still hasn’t adopted the newer platform. For the same amount of money spent, you can get a discrete graphics processor (NVIDIA Go7400) with the XPS 1210, which is a definite step up. The discrete graphics processor nullifies the advantage of newer onboard graphics chip in the form of GMA X3100 as Nvidia’s Go7400 is a more powerful option. This leaves the ball in the processors’ court. Since both the processors are built around the same ‘core’ micro-architecture, they are very good processors and with normal applications you will hardly notice the difference. And with Wi-Fi N and Turbo Memory missing and also taking into account Dell’s legendary service, the balance swings into Dell’s favor.
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Specification Table

| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo T7100, 1.80 GHz 2MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB